Agriculture Roundup for Thursday August 18, 2022
MELFORT, Sask. — Seeds Canada celebrated its first anniversary at a recent conference by unveiling its plan to reform its regulatory model.
Executive director, Barry Senft, said the organization is setting up an Independent Standard Setting Body (ISSB) that will work to simplify and modernize the system around seed production, and variety registration.
“Crop varieties and innovations are being kept from Canadian farmers under the current seed industry’s regulatory framework,” Senft said. “One major multinational seed company has pulled out of Canada because of the challenges they faced getting their crop varieties to farmers.”
Seeds Canada was formed in 2021 as an amalgamation of the Canadian Plant Technology Association, the Commercial Seed Analysts of Canada, the Canadian Seed Institute, and the Canadian Seed Trade Association.